More on the sustainable farm

keh · Sep 24, 2012

Daughter sent us by UPS the book I mentioned in the post on young farmers by oldtanker yesterday. I was wrong on title. The title is "The Seasons on Henry's Farm" and is written by Henry's sister, Terra Brockman. Guess one way to sustain the farm is to sell books about it. To paraphrase an old saying, maybe "the pen is maghter than the tractor", LOL.

He grows 650 plus varieties of vegetable on 10 acres along a creek. I guess they were down the hill from where we drove in.

My parents practiced "sustainable farming" before, during, and after the Great Depression. Small farmers then had big gardens to live from and hoped to get cash from selling a cotton crop. Notice I said hoped. Parents switched to small dairy farming and selling buttermilk retail.

KEH

donjr · Sep 24, 2012

And the guv screwed it up an put a kabosh on that.....

TomH in PA · Sep 24, 2012

Another interesting book on the subject was "Malabar Farm" by Louis Bromfield. He made it sound like paradise, but he spent his fortune "farming" and ended up nearly bankrupt. Then again, maybe he was farming...
Malabar Farm video

keh · Sep 24, 2012

Yep, grass will conserve moisture and add topsoil. However, it takes nature 100 years to create an inch of topsoil under good conditions, according to textbooks from some years ago.

KEH

mjbrown · Sep 24, 2012

That's a big garden, not really a farm.

rrlund · Sep 24, 2012

I just wish somebody would tell me what that phoney catch phrase means.

Guess it just means it makes some wack jobs feel good.

Dave in GA · Sep 24, 2012

Sustainable is definitely a big fad right now. It has its good points but is mostly impractical and expensive to the consumer. Here are some other catch words that you'll hear the sustainable folks using:

regional
locally-grown
organic
certified organic
antibiotic-free
hormone-free
grass-fed
free-range
heirloom
heritage
humane
raised bed
compost

Related, a local university has a Farmers Market every Tuesday on campus. It's supposed to be about local farmers bringing their veggies, fruits, eggs, honey, etc. into town to sell to the sustainable-minded students. I find the market to be a joke. If there are 12 booths or tents set up, maybe 2 have garden or farm-grown produce or meat. All the others are hippies selling artisan pastas, tea blends, baked goods, artsy things. NOT a farmers market.

RodinNS · Sep 24, 2012

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed that the profitability of market gardening and grass fed beef is improved greatly through the sale of books and lecture tours...

Rod

oldtanker · Sep 24, 2012

(quoted from post at 18:54:12 09/24/12) I just wish somebody would tell me what that phoney catch phrase means.

Guess it just means it makes some wack jobs feel good.

Well according to my wife with a degree in sustainable farming it means that you try to put manure on your fields, minumum amouts of chimicals like herbcides and such. To sustain the land for the next generation so to speak.

Of the students she graduated with most are wild eyed fanatics that may as well be organic, with beads and bandana's and owrking thier garden with a hoe.

We do raise grass fed beef, pasture raise feeder pigs, chickens, not free range (to many preditiors around for that) but they have a large outdoor run. I'm working at having 8-10 cow calf units, another 8-10 feeders/finishers. About 40 pigs started as feeders to butcher, chickens for meat and eggs and a road side stand for veggies. WE are selling for around market values but instead of the middle man and store getting a cut we get it all. I have retirement income and she has a job in town so all we are looking to do is make a little profit. Side benny is food for our table.

WIth 60 tillable acres I'm not going to make any money trying to conventional farm it so this at least gives me an excuse to buy toys!

2 8N's, M and 1206 Farmall and a back hoe.....more toys to come! Combine and mixer grinder are next!

Rick

rrlund · Sep 25, 2012

Wow,I'm some sustainable hippie type and didn't know it. These cattle produce manure and I spread it,that's for sure. Yea,I use herbicides sparingly. With the price of them,why would I spend the money to use more than I need to. The cows and calves are on pasture all summer.

Dang,I'm finally part of a fad.

Ken Macfarlane · Sep 25, 2012

There's not really any other kind of beef around here, the folks aren't getting rich off beef but they can keep their 100 cleared acres stocked and paid for and have time for another job such as working in the woods. I don't think any of them are going to write a book about it being a get rich quick scheme.

philcase · Sep 25, 2012

My definition of sustainable farming is what makes you enough money to be able to keep up your addiction, er farming. It all comes down to time and money in the end. And add natural to that list of words. Actually no agricultural practices are "natural". Natural would be living in a cave, gathering berries and leaves, and hunting with a stick and rocks hoping you get the bear before it gets you.
Phil

rrlund · Sep 25, 2012

A true believer in "sustainable agriculture" if the definition is preserving the land for the next generation,would put the land in CRP and not farm it at all. The fact that they don't proves it's just a fad.

RodinNS · Sep 25, 2012

I'm not talking about someone running cow/calf or backgrounding feeders.... unless you're really talking about the segment that relentlessly believes in grass finishing.
It just strikes me as interesting that the oracle of grass finishing spends more time on camera giving comments, producing books and articles and going on speaking tours... telling the great unwashed how it should be done... and collecting a pretty good salary for his efforts. I find it all very cynical.

Rod

oldtanker · Sep 25, 2012

Look up the rules for grass fed. The animal has to only have a grass only diet fo 30 days to be sold as grass fed. The fanatics are trying to change that.

The things they are mostly against are "chemical farming" where all inputs into a field are chemical, they want no hormones, animals having access to the outdoors for the critters and no GMO foods or feeds.

Unlike the organic folks it's ok to treat an animal with meds if it's sick.

Like I say I go with the flow on that because it get to buy toys. Our kids give the wife he** about being a hippy. I will be using dry chemical fertilizer in the spring because I don't have enough manure to cover the 60 acres at home and the other 10 I'm renting. When I get to that point I'll still add where needed. I'm ok with cultivation corn, more seat time! I'm ok with the no GMO's but ok with hybrids. Kinda enjoy the critters seeing as there are no pigs to care for over wither and the wife takes care of her chickens.

And again, if it pays enough to buy me a few more toys it's all good!

If I don't do this there isn't much sence in me having much in the way of equipment.

Rick

rrlund · Sep 25, 2012

I love it! Yup,to me it's all a bunch of left over hippy comune stuff from the 60s.

I'll elaborate on what you just said about the fertilizer. I'm chopping a field of continuous silage corn right now. Too low and wet for alfalfa. I have to plant RR and Bt or there's no sense planting it at all. I use a starter fertilizer and usually either use anhydrous or 28. This year I hauled a whale of a bunch of pen manure on it and plowed it down. Yeild is exactly what it usually is. Problem is,it's only about 25% of my total corn acerage and I don't have enough of it for the other 75%.
Under "sustainable,natural" all that crap,I'd just be mining the nutrients out of the rest of the ground and that ain't sustainable.

oldtanker · Sep 25, 2012

(quoted from post at 09:14:22 09/25/12) I love it! Yup,to me it's all a bunch of left over hippy comune stuff from the 60s.

I'll elaborate on what you just said about the fertilizer. I'm chopping a field of continuous silage corn right now. Too low and wet for alfalfa. I have to plant RR and Bt or there's no sense planting it at all. I use a starter fertilizer and usually either use anhydrous or 28. This year I hauled a whale of a bunch of pen manure on it and plowed it down. Yeild is exactly what it usually is. Problem is,it's only about 25% of my total corn acerage and I don't have enough of it for the other 75%.
Under "sustainable,natural" all that crap,I'd just be mining the nutrients out of the rest of the ground and that ain't sustainable.

Actually for what my wife was taught in college you use chemicals where needed. So if you don't have enough manure....they were told about rotational grazing, crop rotation and green manure. And as far as animal poo goes you spread this year where you didn't spread last yer unless you have enough to spread on everything. WHere you can't spread this then chems are OK.

Rick

Eldon (WA) · Sep 25, 2012

I am trying to be sustainable....using manure and no pesticides or herbicides. I have no animals, but do custom tractor work on the side and have been fortunate to find enough manure around to supply most of my needs. I still side dress with triple 16 on some areas, less than $250 worth on 7 acres/year. Our soil is in excellent shape organically, lots of earthworm action and ladybugs galore. On a larger scale I think it would be a hopeless endeavor....like others have said, the money is in writing about it LOL! Fortunately my wife and I had more lucrative careers before this one, so we started out with no debt. Most are not as fortunate.....

casenut1 · Sep 25, 2012

and remember he brought us the great hedge, multiflora rose.just try killing that stuff.

oldtanker · Sep 26, 2012

(quoted from post at 21:20:36 09/25/12) I am trying to be sustainable....using manure and no pesticides or herbicides. I have no animals, but do custom tractor work on the side and have been fortunate to find enough manure around to supply most of my needs. I still side dress with triple 16 on some areas, less than $250 worth on 7 acres/year. Our soil is in excellent shape organically, lots of earthworm action and ladybugs galore. On a larger scale I think it would be a hopeless endeavor....like others have said, the money is in writing about it LOL! Fortunately my wife and I had more lucrative careers before this one, so we started out with no debt. Most are not as fortunate.....

My BIL could do it but is so tight he will not even empty his manure pit but about half way beacuse he would have to pay more rent on the tanks, pump and agitator. He goes bare minumum on the reat of his fields. HIs reaction to getting 4000 bushels of corn more than he could store was to say he was never planting that much corn again instead of putting in more storage. He owns about 1000 acres. His son farms with him and he rents about 300 more. They milk 40 head and have about 70 feeders they sell not counting the dairy bull calves. He never cleans up the manure packs where he feeds in the winter,,,,,again too much money for fuel to him.

Rick

Bret4207 · Sep 26, 2012

I don't think there's anything wrong with being "sustainable". IMO it's a better path to follow than playing the debt game where you have to have bigger, newer, fancier equipment than your neighbors, more land, bigger, new truck, etc. I don't use chemicals simply because they are too expensive. I don't like hybrid, GMO crops because I'm tied to a company for seed and it's expensive. I don;t like having newer, bigger toys, er, equipment because it's expensive and I can't repair them. I LIKE using horses, I LIKE using older, simpler gear. I suppose I'm more into self sufficiency than most and I don't have much $ to spend. In my area you HAVE to be a dairy guy to be considered a farmer, my sheep don;t count as far as most are concerned, they call it a hobby. Bull! 100 ewes is not a hobby.

I wouldn't fret over the whole hippy, communist thing either. I'm so conservative I make Limbaugh nervous, USMC, etc. I'm no commie. I think some people just have to tear up anything different.

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